Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; Date:2008 Nov 06; Section:Editorial; Page Number: 16

EDITORIALS

Hail to the Chief

THE ANTIQUE clockwork of the much maligned Electoral College has clicked into place right on schedule, worked its magic, and, within hours after the polls closed Tuesday, the country had a president-elect. Congratulations, sir. Congratulations, America.

It’s time once again to enter the next room of the dream, to cheer the winners and console the losers, and celebrate the vision of the Founders who designed this remarkably durable and, yes, efficient system. You’re not likely to hear the quadrennial complaint that it’s high time to junk this “outmoded” artifact, not this year, not when it has once again vindicated its creators’ handiwork. Once again the two-party system that Hamilton and Jefferson began continues to assure continuity, consensus and a general restoration of perspective—even in the midst of the uncertainty and demoralization that will surely go down in history as the Panic of ’08.

What an elegant balance was struck by those bewigged gentlemen who, having pulled off a long and most improbable revolution against the mightiest empire and military of their time, were soon plunged into the usual post-revolutionary chaos. Meeting that challenge, too, they produced a document for the ages, including the system that, Tuesday night, produced the next president of the United States like, yes, clockwork. Now there was a greatest generation, and our challenge, as ever, is to emulate it.

The spotlight now will be on the incoming administration as an old and unpopular one slinks away, its major and almost only task now to smooth the way for the new. It’s a tradition that goes back to gruff old John Adams’ catching a coach back to Quincy after making a few midnight appointments (like John Marshall to the Supreme Court) that would outlast both him and his brilliant slaveholding successor. How we would love to hear Mr. Jefferson’s response, or just see the reaction on his face, to the election of Barack Hussein Obama to the highest office and greatest trust in the land. America never ceases to amaze—and assure.

Now it’s time once again to change the scenery, the cast, the costumes and all the outward show of our political stagecraft even if the American drama remains remarkably the same, thank goodness. Right down to, please God, the happy ending. Few if any in the audience will be thinking about the intricate beauties of the Electoral College now that the curtain is about to rise on the next act. Instead, the usual critics in the galleries will be speculating 24/7 on the rustling behind the curtain and what it portends. And there is much to speculate about, for the still young matinee idol in the lead role will be among the least-known of presidents-elect in our time.

But this much we do know: Barack Obama’s first accomplishment, even before taking the oath of office, has been to eliminate the rhetoric deficit that has plagued the country for years now—as his graceful and gracious speech election night demonstrated once again. This eloquent young man rang the mystic chords of memory even while promising to take the country on a new course, however wrapped in fog it may be for now. What a relief it will be to have a president who speaks English again.

Soon enough it will be time to fill in the now blank outline that will be the Obama administration. That administration will take shape for good or ill in a thousand ways over the next thousand days. Barack Obama would not be the first president to enter the Oval Office scarcely known. Franklin D. Roosevelt, lest we forget, was elected on the heels of a deeply unpopular Herbert Hoover, whom he’d accused of running wild deficits and fostering “socialism.” During his campaign, FDR had proposed a balanced budget as the remedy for what ailed the nation. But once in office, he followed a policy of bold experimentation, trying one thing after another till he found a few that worked. The historical revisionists we will always have with us, but on balance we’d say he gave the nation another happy ending. How will this administration do? Surely Barack Obama will not stick with his campaign rhetoric about an immediate pull-out from Iraq, or even surrender by some arbitrary deadline, just as victory is in sight. He can thank, yes, John McCain and George W. Bush, and the general whose counsel he once dismissed—David Petraeus—for not having to deal with a Middle East in chaos and various mullahs ascendant over the smoking ruins. Not to mention the boots on the ground, and the American diplomats in Baghdad and throughout that riven country, who carried out the new and successful strategy. The Surge worked. No commander-inchief would now sacrifice its gains. At least we hope not. And, yes, trust.

Surely the next president will not really tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement, breaking faith with our trading partners in Canada and Mexico, and crippling America’s export market. Surely he won’t revive the Smoot-Hawleyism that only prolonged the Great Depression by stifling free trade, and proved fatal to the Hoover administration, just to carry out a campaign promise.

Barack Obama has already changed his mind—and vote—when it comes to maintaining the ability of American intelligence to track international phone calls and listen in on terrorists’ communications. Surely he will not junk all the innovations in spycraft that have prevented another 9/11 in this country. So far.

Surely he doesn’t really believe, whatever he may say, that the way to create wealth is to confiscate it. Surely he’ll listen to Paul Volcker, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the Treasury, who’s already on his team, rather than “Barney Frank, the great enabler of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in Congress. (“I think this is a time when deficit fear has to take second seat . . . . I believe later on there should be tax increases. I think there are a lot of very rich people out there whom we can tax at a point down the road and recover some of the money.”—The Hon. Barney Frank, October 20, 2008) But surely the next president has heard that old story about killing the golden goose”.

And surely he won’t listen to that other nudnik in Congress, New York’s Chuck Schumer, and revive the Unfairness Doctrine in order to gag his critics on talk radio. If so, a still free press should rise as one in defense of the First Amendment.

Surely the Senator Obama who pandered to all those ideological and economic interests on his way to Tuesday’s triumph at the polls will give way to a President Obama who’s serious about uniting the country. We’ll know how serious soon enough by his appointees, for personnel is policy. It will be an assurance if he sticks with the Paul Volckers and free-traders, and retains the competent and increasingly successful Robert Gates as secretary of defense. And if by now he’s learned to listen to General Petraeus rather than ignore him.

At this celebratory moment, the only thing we have to fear from Barack Obama is sincerity. Happily, that is not a common quality among politicians.

The keynote of Barack Obama’s successful campaign has been the bumpersticker word, HOPE. As for us, we live for the day when bumper stickers proclaim: PRUDENCE. Or even better, TRADITION. Or, best of all, when they proclaim nothing at all as Americans get back to what truly makes a difference in a society: the careful tending of our own private lives, businesses and professions, friends and families, enthusiasms and eccentricities, inventions and innovations and investments, churches and communities and schools, and all those deep satisfactions that government is established to foster and protect, not undermine.

Surely the next president of the United States will let us get on with all that in a free country, and, for all his campaign rhetoric, not stick with the foolish consistency that, in Emerson’s phrase, “is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen . . . ” Greatness in some presidents may be measured by how far they rise above their campaign promises.